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Forget about salvaging this season. That may be already lost. But the Blue Jays on Wednesday did manage to salvage the series finale 5-2 vs. the Red Sox, climbing back over break-even. There were important exclamation points as the Jays ran their season record to 11-5 vs. Boston.

Number one, if the Jays are going to convince their fan base that the future lies with its young starting staff, then 23-year-old Marcus Stroman needed to have a solid outing. With a month left, it’s too early for any of the young starters to be perceived as hitting a wall. Stroman, the young right-hander, was coming off four tough starts in a row. Pressure was on for a bounce back.

Stroman (8-5) easily accepted the challenge and was very good all night in earning the victory. Through five innings, he had shut out the Sox on just a David Ortiz single that was erased on a double play grounder. Then came the only blip to his performance, not aided at all by his defence.

An error by Juan Francisco at third base started it off and a wild pitch that should have been blocked accompanied four Sox hits, producing two runs. Stroman pitched out of it, with a comebacker by Mike Napoli and a strikeout of Daniel Nava. Key, but now they trailed again by a run.

Stroman made a statement with 7.2 strong innings, allowing two runs, one earned, on five hits, with a walk and six strikeouts. The performance was very important, since reeling off a dazzling three-game stretch out of the all-star break the youngster had gone 0-3 in four starts, with an 8.66 ERA, averaging just 4.1 innings per start.

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“Same confidence, same gameplan, just try and attack it each time out,” Stroman said. “I had a stretch there when I was up in the zone. I’m just happy to be back to being down and locating my heater down. There never was a doubt in confidence after those starts. I take the mound with the same exact confidence each time out and that’s what I did today. I feel just as strong now as I did on Day 1.”

Second exclamation point: The Jays winning, four-run rally in the seventh was a combination of all the ingredients that have been missing during their long slide. Edwin Encarnacion doubled. Navarro took advantage of a dropped foul popup by the catcher to line a single to left.

The Sox brought Junichi Tazawa into the game to face right-handed pinch-hitter Danny Valencia, whose reputation and key statistics indicate he does not handle right-handers well. Valencia crossed up the strategy by lacing his first Jays home run off the back wall of the home bullpen for a two-run lead. He pumped his fist skyward as he rounded first base.

“The (plan) was the same as it would be facing a lefty,” Valencia said. “Try to get a pitch that you could hit hard. I got into a hitter’s count and was looking for (Tazawa) to be aggressive on the fastball. He made a good pitch and luckily I put a good swing on it.”

The Jays’ feel-good inning did not end there. Recently recalled Kevin Pillar grounded a single to left and hustled into a double with a slide. It was the second straight game he created two bases out of one. He feels inspired by another player that had done the same thing twice against the Jays.

“I watch a lot of baseball and (Rays right fielder) Kevin Kiermayer has made that part of his game,” Pillar explained. “He’s a guy similar to myself, just trying to make the best of his opportunity. I was always told you control hustle in the field. I just want to put pressure on the defence.”

The pressure continued. Pillar moved to third on a bunt by Mune Kawasaki and scored on a contact play against a drawn-in infield, beating the throw by Brock Holt with a head-first dive.

“After the first pitch, (coach Luis Rivera) just told me to be aggressive. In the back of my mind I’m always worried about being doubled off on a line drive, he just reassured me, just go on contact. The throw took (Ross) up the line a little bit and (the dive) just seemed like the right move.”

When Jose Bautista crushed a first-inning home run off the concrete facing in dead centre field, the blast gave the Jays their first lead in 32 innings. The last time they led had been the walkoff against the Rays on Aug. 23. What makes that statistic all the more unusual is that all three losses had gone to extra innings, meaning the Jays were always fighting from behind.

“It makes a huge difference,” Gibbons said of playing with a lead, for once. “It gives you a little breathing room. It can change your whole philosophy. You can run some contact plays. You can be a little more aggressive. It makes quite a bit of difference.”

Following Thursday’s off day the Jays complete the disappointing nine-game homestand with a three-game set against the Yankees. It will be Derek Jeter’s last visit to Toronto as an active player.

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